A group of western journalists will visit the Kerch bridge construction site, the Black Sea Fleet and meet with the peninsula’s administration officials

Crimea, Sevastopol

ARTEK (Yalta), July 6. /TASS/. The refusal of a number of Western media outlets to go on a press tour to Crimea is related to their reluctance to show normal life on the peninsula, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS on Wednesday.

"With the Russian Foreign Ministry’s information and press department assistance, a group of foreign journalists (around 15 people), formed by the Foreign Correspondents Association, arrived in Crimea," Zakharova said. Today, they plan to see the Kerch bridge construction site and then they will come to Artek. Tomorrow, after a Foreign Ministry briefing, they will visit the Black Sea Fleet and meet with the peninsula’s administration officials."

She said that "many foreign journalists have gladly agreed to come." "However, there were those who first gladly agreed and then refused for some reasons, maybe because of the editorial policy", the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.

"Because once the reporters come here, they will not be able to write stories about ghettos and reservations, beating of people and total violation of human rights and freedoms," the diplomat said. "It will be necessary to show the real life as it is, like it or not."

"They will have to show things that do not exist from the viewpoint of the Western society," she said. "Namely: normal life on the peninsula with its pluses, minuses, daily worries, joys, tasks, objectives and overcoming the emerging problems. And that is outside the Western mainstream’s plans."